Review: Kronos Rising: Plague (Max Hawthorne)

For those unfamiliar with Max Hawthorne’s Kronos Rising novels, the series focuses on an aquatic prehistoric monster known as a pliosaur unleashed upon the modern world. The first book has been, quite adequately, described as “Jaws meets Jurassic Park“, while its direct follow up, Kraken, upped the ante by introducing, among other things, gigantic octopuses in a larger than life sci-fi adventure. Prequel novella Diablo scaled things back a bit, showing us what our friendly neighborhood pliosaur got up to between the time of the dinosaurs and the modern age (eating everything that moves is a pliosaur’s favourite hobby). The latest addition to the series, Plague, bridges the gap between Kronos Rising and Kraken, and offers something quite a bit different from the franchise’s usual fare.

The world of Kronos Rising: Kraken is somewhat post-apocalyptic, with Plague explaining in detail how the world managed to get in such bad shape. As it turns out, not only do pliosaurs have a nasty habit of devouring anything they encounter, but they also carry a pathogen which is deadly to mammalian life, which is bad news for humanity. When the virus known as ‘Cretaceous Cancer’ starts to take hold of a human, the victim begins to suffer from hideous mutations and their mind deteriorates to all but the most basic of instincts; to feed.

The meat (pun intended) of Plague‘s story concerns an unfortunate hospital employee who contracts the previously unknown, but deadly, virus from a patient. We then follow him as he descends from the mind of a man to one of a feral beast. This allows author Max Hawthorne to experiment in a sub-genre which is somewhat removed from what his fans are no doubt used to. To that end, Plague actually feels more akin to a zombie story than a tale rooted firmly in a universe populated by giant sea monsters. It is quite interesting to read a book where our main protagonist is also the story’s major antagonist, as we get to see thing’s from the “monster’s” perspective (all of the Kronos Rising books feature some sequences which are conveyed through an animal’s perspective, with Hawthorne having become very adept with this technique at this point).

Hawthorne plays around with body horror to good effect, weaving together some pretty skin-crawling imagery. Indeed, the tense descriptions of a man’s slow descent into sickness may very well bring out your inner hypochondriac. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise at this point that Max Hawthorne would have a penchant for body horror, given some of the nastier part of Kraken (no doubt, many of his loyal readers still shudder whenever they hear the word ‘parasite’).

If there is a problem with Kronos Rising: Plague it is that the pacing feels a tad rushed, in that the book always feels as if it is in a hurry to get to a pre-determined point, namely setting up Kraken. As a novella created exactly for this purpose, this was always going to be something of an issue. While there is certainly a sense that Plague would have worked better as a longer novel, it still manages to be a compelling and, at times, unsettling read.

As a side point, Plague comes bundled with Kronos Rising: Diablo. At only €6 for the paper back edition and €2 for the Kindle version (on Amazon), making the set exceptionally good value.

Sean is Geek Ireland's resident dinosaur enthusiast, having been fascinated by prehistory since a time before he could read, speak or stand in an upright position (he still struggles to do at least one of these things on a daily basis).
Known as one of the biggest dinosaur fans Ireland has ever produced, Sean has delivered talks on his favourite subject at many venues and events including the Irish Film Institute, the UCD Science Expression Festival, Tayto Park, Dublin Comic Con and even London's Comedy Store.